Newsletter London for fun

Welcome to the London For Fun regular newsletter keeping you up to date with what's new in London`s events.

LONDON FOR FUN Newsletter: 1 December 2009 Issue No.186

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http://www.londonforfun.com
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1.) Top 10 London events
2.) Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries
3.) How to unsubscribe

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1. Top 10 London events
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1 - Hugh Masekela 70th birthday concert - London Symphony Orchestra / Hugh Masekela - Music, says Hugh Masekela, ‘makes life simple because it’s not translatable as a language ... It goes to the heart and the mind.’ This concert celebrates the legendary South African trumpeter’s 70th birthday in 2009. It ranges from urban folk songs to pieces by British jazz musician Jason Yarde, but also pays tribute to Masekela’s love of his country. 10 December. www.barbican.org.uk

2 - Messiah - The majesty of the Royal Albert Hall provides the perfect setting for Handel's superb choral masterpiece, sung by a glorious choir of 500 voices. Goldsmiths Choral Union with Highgate Choral Society, English Concert Chorus, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brian Wright conductor. 13 December. www.royalalberthall.com

3 - Suzanne Treister - "MTB [Military Training Base]" - MTB transforms Alma Enterprises into a temporary showroom presenting designs and ideas for a hypothetical military training base of the future. MTBs generally house military equipment and personnel, and are the sites of training and operations. Bases are usually extra-legal jurisdictions not subject to civil law. They can range from small outposts to military cities and may belong to a different nation or state than the surrounding territory. Until 13 December. www.almaenterprises.com

4 - Weegee - It's a crime to take photographs this good... - An exhibition of early photographs by Weegee the Famous and selected artists. Always in the right place at the right time, Weegee’s lense was perpetually aimed the visceral and sometimes violent city of New York. Weegee photographed New York in the 1930s and 1940s in the same iconic and instantly recognisable way Woody Allen was to film the city in the 1970s. Weegee’s voyeuristic eye sought out theharsh realities of the urban experience, but also the joie de vivre and carefree attitude which typified the years between the wars. Until 9 January. www.michaelhoppengallery.com

5 - Raymond Pettibon - For his latest show with Sadie Coles HQ, Raymond Pettibon is exhibiting a series of new drawings together with a number of seminal pieces from the 1980s. Pettibon’s recent body of work shows his art at its most eclectic: comic book vignettes, art historical motifs and literary quotation conflate beguilingly into a multivalent artistic idiom. Until 9 January. www.sadiecoles.com

6 - Barbara Kruger - Using contrasting layers of text and image, Kruger’s work has for almost three decades probed the nature of a media-saturated society in late capitalism, and the significance of highly evolved cultures of consumerism and mass politics to the experience and making of social identities. In addition to offering acute, indeed often piquant cultural insights, Kruger’s work also presents a serious conceptual exploration into the relationship between language and image, and their dynamics as collaborators and antagonists in the bearing of meaning. The artist’s unique blend of conceptual sophistication and wry social commentary has made Kruger one of the most respected and admired artists of her generation,and this timely reappraisal of her early practice reveals the ingenuity and precision of her craft. Until 23 January. http://spruethmagers.net

7 - Turner and the Masters - Turner and the Masters will present a selection of magnificent paintings by JMW Turner (1775-1851) alongside related works by the old masters and contemporaries he hoped to imitate, rival and surpass. Bringing together around one hundred works of supreme historical significance from collections around the world this will be the first exhibition to look at Turner’s work in the company of the greatest painters in the preceding history of western art. It will reveal his debts and rivalries in exciting, even unpredictable, ways, and explore his reputation as one of the greatest painters of landscape in the European tradition. The exhibition will pair Turner’s works with major paintings by his predecessors, many brought together for the first time, including works by Canaletto, Claude, Cuyp, Poussin, Rembrandt, Rubens, Ruisdael, and van de Velde. There will also be pairings with paintings by Turner’s most important contemporaries such as Constable and Bonington. Until 31 January. www.tate.org.uk

8 - GSK Contemporary - Earth: Art of a changing world - GSK Contemporary, Earth: Art of a changing world is the second annual contemporary art season at 6 Burlington Gardens. The exhibition will present new and recent work from more than 30 leading international contemporary artists, including commissions and new works from the best emerging talent. Until 31 January. www.royalacademy.org.uk

9 - Identity: Eight rooms, nine lives - What influences or determines our sense of who we are? What makes one person distinct from another? How does science inform human identity? This major new exhibition explores the tension between the way we view ourselves and how others see us. Nine individual stories introduce eight distinct rooms. One room begins with the story of scientist Alec Jeffreys' invention of DNA fingerprinting 25 years ago. The diaries of Samuel Pepys introduce another. While self-portraiture is explored through the work of the Jewish artist Claude Cahun, who despite being sentenced to death for acts of resistance, survived the Nazi occupation of Jersey. Other subjects tackled include twins, phrenology and brain imaging, gender and sexuality, race and prejudice, and acting and improvisation. Until 6 April 2010. www.wellcomecollection.org

10 - Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition - Come and see the exhibition of winning and commended images from the 2009 competition. This year they have a larger gallery and images are displayed in bigger formats. You can also hire audio guides, featuring comments from the awarded photographers and competition judges. Until 11 April 2010. www.nhm.ac.uk

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2. Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries:

Events listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/events-in-London.htm

Theatre listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-theatres.htm

Museum listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-museums.htm

Galleries listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/galleries-in-London.htm

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